Latin America: Pilger goes Latino

In his first feature film The War on Democracy, journalist John Pilger aims to expose Washington's foreign policy in Latin America, and does not pull any punches.

Through a series of interviews with activists, scholars and incumbent
and retired Washington officials, and not the least with the “ordinary”
people of Latin America, Pilger seeks to illustrate some of the current
changes taking place in the region following the coming to power of
current Left-wing governments.

For example: Mariela Machado - a poor Afro-Venezuelan who is a strong
supporter of Chávez - reveals why the current political shifts are
important. Referring to the notorious barrios,
before Chávez she tells Pilger, "On the maps all these hills and houses
did not figure, they were shown as green spaces" - showing how previous
governments never bothered to document the pitiful slums of Caracas.

When Pilger meets the flamboyant president Hugo Chávez, the
Venezuelan leader describes how he went to school barefoot and was
strongly influenced by his grandmother who taught him the values of
solidarity with others - even when one has little to share.

Chávez tells Pilger his administration is aiming to create a society
"where people are included and are equal, where there is no exclusion,
there is no poverty, where human values reign".

Considering how much money the Chávez administration has invested
into essential services like public health and education, and is acting
as the engine for the economic integration of Latin American countries -
to negotiate with the United States on more equal terms - the singing
President's ambitions seem mostly sensible. Pilger highlights these
issues well, although a more critical take on the Venezuelan President
would have been healthy.

Much of Chávez's political rhetoric towards the Bush administration,
for example, is tongue-in-cheek - a point understood by Pilger though
missed by most non-Spanish speakers - but he undoubtedly goes too far on
occasion. Within Latin America, Chávez's words have caused unnecessary
political entanglements, while his praise for almost everyone anti-US
foreign policy - Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Zimbabwe's Robert
Mugabe, for example - are distasteful to many who would otherwise be
supportive.

The War on Democracy has many classic Pilger moments. When a
Venezuelan businessman tells the Australian that the current political
situation is comparable to "Russia in 1914" - he meant to say 1917 -
Pilger laughs and points out that no one is exactly bashing the door
down to expropriate his business.

When another businessman shows Pilger his affluent home and gloats
how Venezuelan elites built Miami because they had so much money and
didn't know what to do with it, Pilger can barely contain his rage, and
his sarcasm in the exchange is undiluted.

But there are moments that are beyond humour. Pilger talks to
Bolivian priest Juan Delfin Mamani about the political struggles of his
constituency, and Roberto Navarrete walks Pilger through Chile's
notorious national football stadium where people were tortured during
Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. These scenes are simply stated and
deeply moving.

The cinematography of the film is also impressive and enhances the
work's message. The frightening slums of the hills of Caracas should
allow people to ponder how humans can live in such miserable conditions -
or such opulence, as highlighted by the lives of Venezuelan elites.

One of Pilger's greatest strengths though is his ability to get
interviews with current or ex-government officials, who often get an
uncomfortable grilling.

Pilger's encounter with Duane R Clarridge - head of the Central
Intelligence Agency's Latin American division in the early 1980s and
author of A Spy for All Seasons: My Life in the CIA - is highly insightful, not to mention frightening.

When Pilger questions Clarridge on the human rights record of the
Salvadorian death squads which Washington trained in the 1970s and
1980s, Clarridge eloquently responds, "That's all bullshit". Human
rights organisations, such as Amnesty International, are all liars,
according to the CIA man; he adds in an agitated voice, that the United
States will "intervene whenever we decide it's in our national security
interest to intervene. And if you don't like it, lump it. Get used to
it, World, we're not going to put up with nonsense."

It's a shame that in the feature-length The War on Democracy
Pilger does not venture out of his usual documentary format. The film
starts with the journalist telling us what his film will be about - and
just in case we might have forgotten by 10 or 15 minutes into it, he
keeps reminding us with his running commentary.

Pilger is obviously an intelligent and passionate man, but his
documentary work might benefit from providing his audience with less
emotive commentary. The archive footage and frank interviews in his film
are powerful enough, and leave his audience with ample evidence to draw
their own conclusions.